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A proof of Snevily’s conjecture. (English) Zbl 1241.20061

The challenging conjecture of H. S. Snevily [Am. Math. Mon. 106, No. 6, 584-585 (1999)] on subsets in Abelian groups of odd order which is described as follows has attracted much attention: let \(A=\{a_1,\dots,a_k\}\) and \(B=\{b_1,\dots,b_k\}\) be two \(k\)-subsets of Abelian group \(G\) of odd order (written multiplicatively), then there is a permutation \(\pi\in S_k\) such that \(a_1b_{\pi(1)},\dots,a_kb_{\pi(k)}\) are distinct. N. Alon [Isr. J. Math. 117, 125-130 (2000; Zbl 1047.11019)] proved the conjecture when the order of the group is an odd prime, and in 2001, S. Dasgupta, G. Károlyi, O. Serra and B. Szegedy, [Isr. J. Math. 126, 17-28 (2001; Zbl 1011.05014)], proved it for any cyclic group of odd order. In this paper, the author proves the conjecture ingeniously and briefly with the skills of linear algebra.

MSC:

20K01 Finite abelian groups
20D60 Arithmetic and combinatorial problems involving abstract finite groups
05B15 Orthogonal arrays, Latin squares, Room squares
05A05 Permutations, words, matrices
11B75 Other combinatorial number theory

References:

[1] N. Alon, Additive Latin transversals, Israel Journal of Mathematics 117 (2000), 125–130. · Zbl 1047.11019 · doi:10.1007/BF02773567
[2] S. Dasgupta, Gy. Károlyi, O. Serra and B. Szegedy, Transversals of additive Latin squares, Israel Journal of Mathematics 126 (2001), 17–28. · Zbl 1011.05014 · doi:10.1007/BF02784149
[3] H. Snevily, Unsolved Problems: The Cayley Addition Table of \(\mathbb{Z}\)/n\(\mathbb{Z}\), American Mathematical Monthly 106 (1999), 584–585. · doi:10.2307/2589472
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